Mìng Gōng

Everything on the chart is counted from 命宮. The rule in 卷二 starts the first lunar month at 寅, runs forward to the birth month, then runs backward by the hour, and the calculator follows it, which is why it will not draw a chart without a birth hour. The eleven remaining palaces then follow against the order of the branches. This palace's stem and branch also decide the bureau, and through the bureau the position of every main star.

命 means life, or what is allotted to a life. The book never defines the palace in general terms, so any statement of what it covers comes from its name, its first place in the count and modern use, where it is read as an overall picture of the person. The same rule that finds it finds the 身宮, or body palace, by running forward from the birth month by the hour, and a birth in the 子 hour puts the two in the same place. Where the book and the default chart part ways is the first ten-year period: the default starts on this palace, the book one palace away, and the calculator's book setting then reaches this palace last.

卷二 gives this palace the fullest treatment of the twelve, and its entries for each star cover looks, temperament, companions and the year stems that suit each branch. Verses for men, for women and for the running periods follow, and a good deal of that material is a set of social verdicts from its own time. The calculator prints none of it and shows the stars, their brightness and marks. Where a star's page on this site reports the book's words, it does so as the book's words.